My son has an HP Photosmart 7960 printer that he had been running on a Windows XP 32-bit system with no problems.
When he switched it to a computer running Vista Home 64-bit, he lost some functionality for the printer, because HP has released only a basic print version of the driver for this OS.
Specifically, he can no longer see what his ink levels are (with the previous XP 32-bit system, the levels showed each time the print screen came up). I'm not sure what other functionality was lost. This leads me to ask the following questions:

Will the HP printer driver for XP 32-bit work with the Vista 64-bit OS?
Will it afford the same functionality as it did in XP?
Is there a more recent driver available that will work (HP doesn't have one)?

A maxium of 64 Bit OS is that all drivers and security apps must also be 64 Bit. As Clint says, keep watching, but don't hold your breath. Printer manufacturers seem to be the last to offer updated drivers, they want to sell a new product instead.

Thanks, guys.
HP says that they will not update this driver. From the HP driver web site:
"This download includes a Print Driver only. This driver makes it possible to use the basic functions for the printer. HP will not be providing a Full Featured Vista Software and Driver for this product; therefore,
some functionality may be lost when you use this product with Windows Vista."
I was hoping that the XP 32-bit driver would still work, but I guess that won't happen.
That sucks - it's still a very nice printer, forced into artificial obsolescence. Thank you, HP!

Now windows 7 may be a different story.
I think many companies are sensing that Vista is fast becoming a "dead duck" and not worth the effort.
It might be worth looking at the drivers HP is offering for W7, at least for a potential os upgrade in the future.

DRIVE IMAGINGInvest a little time and energy in a well thought out BACKUP regimen and you will have minimal down time, and headache.

Clint, I checked for the Win7 64-bit drivers, but HP had a similar message:

"The drivers for your HP product are already included in the new Windows 7 operating system! ... With the Windows 7 driver, the buttons on the product might not function and some of the advanced product features are not available."

Looks like HP has dropped this printer like a hot potato. And it's not like you can say the hell with HP - I have an older Epson printer, and they did the same thing (no more driver updates after Win2K. Fortunately, their 2K driver works on my XP system).

Good luck with that Les. These guys are so big, that even a few hundred rebellious people would not affect them. That is how they got so big, dropping support for old stuff so they can sell a new product. At least MS conts to support older versions of an app for a while after releasing new versions of their apps. They do not say that your Office 2003 will no longer work with Win 7. It's too bad hardware manufacturers do not support their products as long. They make stuff that still works, but can't talk to your OS any more.

"With the initial shipping (RTM) version of Windows Vista, the various benefits of the x64 Vista versions were somewhat counterbalanced by a number of limitations, the most important of which were compatibility issues. 16-bit applications are not supported, which is less problematic than it was a few years ago, but still an issue for some applications that use legacy application installers. 32-bit device drivers are not supported, so you can't use any of the existing hardware drivers out there, but must instead use native x64-based drivers. This situation improved dramatically over the first 12 to 18 months that Vista was on the market, however. So by the time that SP1 shipped, most compatibility issues were gone. Today, there is no reason to opt out of Vista x64 because of compatibility."

This seems to indicate that 32-bit drivers (at least some of them) will now work with Vista 64-bit with SP1. Any thoughts on this?

"With the initial shipping (RTM) version of Windows Vista, the various benefits of the x64 Vista versions were somewhat counterbalanced by a number of limitations, the most important of which were compatibility issues. 16-bit applications are not supported, which is less problematic than it was a few years ago, but still an issue for some applications that use legacy application installers. 32-bit device drivers are not supported, so you can't use any of the existing hardware drivers out there, but must instead use native x64-based drivers. This situation improved dramatically over the first 12 to 18 months that Vista was on the market, however. So by the time that SP1 shipped, most compatibility issues were gone. Today, there is no reason to opt out of Vista x64 because of compatibility."

This seems to indicate that 32-bit drivers (at least some of them) will now work with Vista 64-bit with SP1. Any thoughts on this?